Slides for Day 1 of þe Graduate Economic History Course...
Econ 210a: preliminaries; paper & participation; utility of economic history for the non-history oriented economist; the long-term structure of human economic history; as much technological advance...
I very much hope that the class will not get through all, or even most of these. Think of them as supports for the discussion I hope the class will have, rather than the skeleton of and an aide mémoire for a lecture. But you never know how a class will go: time and chance happeneth to us all:
Introduction
Preliminaries
Does This Course Need a Justification?
Bob Solow’s view of economic history…
Olivier Blanchard’s read of the inflation situation…
A historical perspective…
Malthusian Economies & Beyond
Readings
Population estimates and guesses
Current and historical-memory estimates of productivity levels and living standards
Income levels and living standards from 1870 guessed at back to -6000
The character of a Malthusian society
The demographic transition
Before the neolithic revolution?
What comes next?
“Technology”
Major features of historical economies
Recapitulation
Next time